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Letters: June 4

Las Cruces Sun-News

Posted:
06/04/2014 01:00:00 AM MDT

Black bears face tough future in New Mexico

For decades, the New Mexico Game and Fish Department has been allowing hunters to slaughter black bears in New Mexico without knowing their general population. This is in violation of its wildlife management principles. Now with all the problems facing the bears' survival, the agency claims it will determine "accurate estimates of bear 'abundance' that will contribute to the establishment of harvest (kill) objectives for the state (hunters)."

Things couldn't be any worse for black bears here if their survival depended on Congress!

Bob Young, Las Cruces

Que viva Organ Mountains Desert Peaks monument

I was delighted to attend the celebration of the designation of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument by President Obama. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell represented the Obama administration quite well and I was pleased to see and hear our two senators, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, as well as former Sen. Jeff Bingaman and others. With the backdrop of the Organ Mountains under scattered clouds, the party could not have gone better. The only regret I have is that it would have been better if Congress had made the designation.

Unfortunately this was impossible, given the current political climate.

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I do not know how these mountains will fare during the decades ahead, especially if global climate change produces a permanent drought in the Southwest. I do know that if we do not protect sufficient wildlands we may very well have nothing left even if the predictions prove inaccurate.

I have hiked through the mountains and have been amazed by the variety of the flora and fauna contained therein. It would certainly not be in our long-term best interest to develop the mountains, especially because of the relative lack of one resource we cannot easily replace and which would be needed for such development — water.

Viva the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument!

David B. Richman, Las Cruces

Gun control advocates skew UC shooting

Regarding the homicides near UC-Santa Barbara, a disturbed young man murdered six and wounded seven over Memorial Day weekend. Half of those killed were stabbed and the others were shot, though news reports refer to him only as a "gunman" in order to serve a political agenda. He used a knife, a legally purchased handgun and he had only 10-round magazines (41 of them). Predictably, it took no time at all for shameless gun grabbers to call for action — against guns, not knives.

Mark Best, Las Cruces

There's no refuting science on climate change

In a letter published May 23, Robert W. Endlich, self-proclaimed meteorologist, repeats his efforts to refute the information developed by hundreds of scientists, including meteorologists, geophysicists, chemists, geologists and others. Their work has been continuously reviewed by scientists, politicians and others initially convened by the United Nations in 1980, and reported upon periodically since.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is charged with assessing peer-reviewed documents on climate science from around the world and providing information useful for governments in the development of policy.

The most recent IPCC report states, "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased."

Included in the report are statements that warming is caused by human activity, particularly by the burning of fossil fuels, and that the planet is already on a path which will result in worsening drought, famine, sea level rise, etc.

Further, they suggest that we should begin adapting to those consequences, which are unavoidable, now.

About the only scenario that is uncertain is the amount of global warming which can be allowed to occur before it will be impossible to reestablish an habitable climate. The presently accepted target is 2 degrees Celsius, and we are already on track to reach 1.8 degrees in the near future.

If anyone wants to find out for themselves who is indulging in propaganda or "spinning" the facts, I recommend going to the IPCC website to read its fifth report, which includes information about adaptation to some of the changes. As an 85 year-old, I feel hypocritical about writing this, because I have enjoyed unlimited energy usage throughout my life, but although we better get started, ASAP.

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